


Nipping at Your Nose

by KreweOfImp



Series: Let It Snow [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x20 never happened, And Fuck Everyone Who Bears Any Responsibility For Conceiving Or Writing It, Because Fuck Everything About That Garbage, Both of the Fic Variety and the Fur Variety, Destiel is canon, Domestic Fluff, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, F/M, Fuck Each Of Them Personally and Specifically, Happily Ever After, Just So Much Lovely Fluff, Kitten, Let It Snow 'verse, M/M, One Year Later, Pet Adoption, Post-Canon, Sort Of, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27599006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KreweOfImp/pseuds/KreweOfImp
Summary: It's been a year since the last apocalypse fizzled out into a shitty writer without any extraordinary powers at all, begging for a glorious end (which he didn't get, because, hey, fuck that guy).  Things are...actually, things are pretty great.  Dean would've guessed that they honestly couldn't get much better--but all that was before Cas and Sam spotted the Craigslist posting.In which Dean finds, to his mild surprise, that he's done being a killjoy and it turns out that there actually is plenty of room in the Winchester home and hearts for more love.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: Let It Snow [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/386992
Comments: 41
Kudos: 119





	Nipping at Your Nose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BellaRisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellaRisa/gifts).



> For the sake of plausible deniability, borrowing some of canon for throwaway lines, and not messing up my own personal Let It Snow canon, let’s go with much of the major Big Bad and Monster of the Week history that SPN has gifted us with over the past few years is still legit—Chuck’s still a complete shit, and he still got deep-sixed by a powered-up Jack (in this case around a year ago, not last week)—but all of the Cas/Dean drama simply…didn’t happen. They’ve been in a happy BDSM-heavy relationship for the past six years or so, Cas has been around for all of the Winchester nonsense, the Empty deal never happened, everything is beautiful and nothing except Dean’s ass hurts. And obviously, 15x20 never happened because it was the biggest dumpster fire SPN has ever provided, and I've watched Bugs a total of four times.
> 
> Yeah, if I wanted to focus in any depth on the actual plotlines of the past several seasons, this would require a lot of adjustment, but mostly I just want to be able to include the Fuck Chuck Happily Ever After in this ficlet, so you’ll have to bear with me and deal with the general handwaving around exactly how the plot all happened without any Cas-related angst.
> 
> P.S. Destiel is Canon. Still. Always. My wife and I are saying that to each other on average of four times a day these days, and I thought the rest of you might enjoy hearing it repeated too.
> 
> ~*~
> 
> For Bella; I know you can barely remember how to breathe right now. That’s okay. I am holding space for you, holding you close and safe. Grieve him. Only the purest love could leave such a void behind in the goodbye.

Mid-November of 2021 has brought with it the first snow of the year, little more than flurries but snow nevertheless. It’s been long enough since the disastrous winter of 2016 that Dean’s back to unmitigated joy at the sight of those first tiny crystals drifting downward, leaving the finest powder to dust Baby’s roof. There’s still no real accumulation, but his boots are wet nevertheless, and he pauses to wipe them on the “Welcome Unless You’re a Vampire” mat that Sam scared up from somewhere as he slips back through the bunker door, a grocery bag with half-and-half slung over his wrist and a bakery box with fresh caramel apple pie that smelled too damn good in his hand. 

He probably only hears the abortive scrap of conversation thanks to the moment he takes on the mat, having learned that lesson over the past few months—for once, via exasperated guilt-tripping and not through the seat of his pants (“we may have met in a barn, Dean, but I know for a fact that you were not raised in one. There is no reason to clomp around leaving smears of mud, especially as Mrs. Butters was unable to remain with us and neither Sam nor I is your housekeeper”).

“—and you know Dean will—" if he were more strategic and less impulsive, he reflects some time later, he would have stayed on the mat a few minutes longer and found out what was up before it was too late (the big secret that he’ll never tell is that inside of a week he’s thanking his lucky stars for that impulsivity. Had he known what was coming he _definitely_ would have put the kibosh on it, and what a mistake that would have been. For now, though—).

“Dean will what?” He inquires casually, clomping down the stairs in his now dry boots and startling both Sam and Cas into twin little jumps. That alone should be enough to clue him in, but a little bit of complacency has become the name of the game with Chuck about as powerful as your average whiny Boomer for the last year or so (Dean figures he can count as a Boomer, given that he’s literally older than dirt, at least for the sake of the “ok, boomer” texts that are the only thing any of them have sent in response to Chuck since he somehow scared up a cell phone and started texting them with pleas to give him the glorious ending he thinks he deserves). Sure, there are still your shifters and vamps and werewolves and vengeful ghosts and rugaru wandering around, but without Chuck writing the story, the past year has brought with it nothing more exciting than a ghoul who decided to eat and impersonate Mitch McConnell (and realistically, they all agreed that the ghoul was a significant improvement on the real thing. They killed it anyway, but not before thanking it for dispatching the rancid turtle-faced hypocrite). They hunt, yeah, but 99% of the hunts are little more than milk runs now, prominent republican ghouls notwithstanding—and far from being bored, Dean is finding that he fucking loves it. The usual hunter network (not to mention the Apocalypse World hunters) are scattered across the country taking care of anything further away than Nebraska, the British Men of Letters (who turned out to suck a lot less when Jack just…didn’t snap back their former leadership when he un-Thanosed the world) and their hunter network are handling things in Europe—the trio of Winchesters pretty much sticks to taking care of the supernatural shit causing problems in their corner of the Midwest. It’s fucking _great_ is what it is. After some trial and error around the actual responsibilities of being the new God, Jack even pops in for hot chocolate, cookies, and occasionally even family dinner every Thursday night. He doesn’t say an awful lot about what he’s actually up to, but he listens to their updates on the mundanity of day-to-day life with his characteristic sweet smile on his face and never leaves without hugs all around.

Honestly, things have never been better, and Dean is _living for it._ The strain of constant end-of-the-world bullshit having finally lifted, Dean and Cas’s relationship has never been stronger (which is a good thing even when it means there’s more than enough spare time for Cas to make sure Dean pretty much never sits completely comfortably). Eileen spends more time at the bunker than away these days, although she does have her own place about five miles away in Esbon, a cute little apartment that she spends increasingly little time at. Sam is basically fluent in sign language at this point (Cas turns out to know literally all of ASL, unsurprisingly, and is actually a really good teacher) and Dean’s definitely not fluent but coming along really well too. He gives it maybe a year before Sam pops the question, but when he made some characteristically clumsy overtures toward assuring Sam that if he and Eileen wanted to get their own place in Lebanon, maybe buy a house, Dean and Cas would be happy for them, Sam just laughed at him, clapping him on the shoulder and saying that the bunker was more than big enough for the four of them as long as everyone was respectful of common space (there may have been some meaningful looks that Dean ignored) and made sure to knock on closed doors (there may have been some meaningful looks _from_ Dean that Sam ignored—and to be fair, it _had_ been like five years since the kid’s blizzard-addled winter of what-the-fuckery).

Yeah, things are pretty fucking awesome, and later on Dean will blame that on his complacency and credulity, because he doesn’t even question it when Cas turns and says smoothly, “come back with a pie, since we all know Fridays are pie-baking days at Pat-a-Cake.” 

Dean grins and holds up the bakery box. “Guilty as charged. Caramel apple pies are back for the season. You expected me to resist that siren’s song?”

“You’ve never resisted a fresh baked pie in your life,” Sam chimes in, rolling his eyes, “especially since Cas let slip that he’s keeping your arteries clear.”

“Careful, Samantha,” Dean says cheerfully, “or I won’t save you a slice.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” Cas says with that undertone of command that still somehow makes goosebumps rise on his arms as instantly as if Cas had been Domming him for mere months instead of well over half a decade. “You do not need to eat an entire pie in a single day. Leave enough for Sam and Eileen, whenever she gets home.”

“Oh, fine,” Dean grumbles, but it’s a show and they all know it. He ain’t in his twenties and probably couldn’t finish the entire pie in one sitting even if he wanted to, but he appreciates the pair of them playing along as if he could, “I won’t finish it, but I’m definitely having a slice now while it’s still warm. Either of you want in?” Cas will say no, of course, but Dean never stops offering—just one more way to make sure Cas knows he’s part of this family.

“Nah, I’ll wait for Eileen and have a slice with her after dinner,” Sam says, “and actually, I’ve gotta meet up with her for a run. Cas, you want in?”

“Yes, I think I’d like that,” Cas says after a brief pause to consider. Dean hides his eye-roll. He continues to maintain his ‘I run when things are chasing me’ policy, but somehow over the past year Sam has convinced Cas that running is _fun._ Cas doesn’t even have cardiovascular health to maintain, but he comes along on Sam’s runs at least three or four days a week now, and when pushed about why, informs Dean that exerting his human body reminds him to be grateful to the now heaven-dwelling Jimmy for the gift of his vessel. Dean lets it slide, because how do you even argue with that?

“You two crazy kids have fun,” Dean tells them a little absently, already salivating at the thought of the seasonal spiced caramel glaze that covers the top of Pat-A-Cake’s already spectacular Apple Pie, still steaming slightly in the box.

“Yep,” Sam says, turning for the door, “see you in an hour or two.”

Cas pauses Dean with a hand on his arm just long enough to kiss him thoroughly, then follows Sam, tromping up the stairs in his wake.

It doesn’t occur to Dean until a solid fifteen minutes later, halfway through his second piece of still warm pie (this one complimented by a scoop of vanilla ice cream) that neither Sam nor Cas was wearing anything remotely resembling work-out clothes when they left.

Huh.

~*~

An hour goes by, and then two, and before long Dean’s made it all the way through both Jurassic World movies (plus a third piece of pie, although that’s about his limit for one afternoon now that he’s on the wrong side of 40) in the Dean Cave and there’s still no sign of brother, almost-sister-in-law, or angelic boyfriend. There’s no way even they’ve gone on a four-hour run, and between that, the street clothes, and the vaguely suspicious conversation happening when Dean first got home, he’s certain that _something_ is up.

“You three okay?” He group-texts all of them, “you’ve been gone a hell of a long time for a run.”

The trio of ellipses appear several seconds later, and shortly thereafter a message pings through from Cas. “All is well, Sam and I will be home in twenty minutes.”

“Cool, see you then,” Dean sends back before heading to the kitchen to wash his pie plate.

It’s not until he’s back in the library for the first time since Sam and Cas left that he realizes Sam’s laptop was left open on the long table—entirely uncharacteristic (“Do you know how much damage years of dust can do to electronics, Dean? Is it so hard to remember to close the damn lid when you’re done using it? And for that matter, you literally have your own computer—use that”).

A good deal more laid-back than when there were constant apocalypses that required dealing with or not, there’s more than enough fodder for suspicion at this point. Dean feels not the tiniest scrap of guilt when he presses the button to awaken Sam’s laptop and enters the pin as the screen comes to life.

The log-in screen vanishes to be replaced by the familiar sight of a Craigslist posting, and three seconds later Dean knows exactly what all the subterfuge was about.

~*~

The door to the bunker clangs open ten minutes later to admit Cas, carrying a stack of items tall enough that the top is actually wobbling dangerously back and forth, and Sam, carrying only a single item carefully cradled in his arms—a pet carrier.

“Welcome back,” Dean says dryly from his seat at the table in front of Sam’s laptop, “how’s Sebastian?”

“I—wait, what?” Sam demands, sounding unreasonably surprised considering what garbage he and Cas are at being sneaky.

“You never leave your laptop open. Like I wasn’t gonna start to suspect something eventually? Leaving that aside—this is a pretty impulsive decision, wouldn’t you say? Maybe the kind of thing worth talking to your brother about, before you adopt a rat?”

“He’s a _dog_ , and you’ve known for years I wanted one, Dean,” Sam says, clearly gearing up for a fight as he follows an overburdened Cas down the stairs.

“I have, yeah, and you know I’ve had my objections, but you were also wanting a Golden Retriever or a German Shepherd or some shit. How do you go from that to a dog that literally has “toy” in the breed name?”

“That would be my fault,” Cas pipes up from behind the stack of objects that literally extends higher than his own head, “I saw the ad and showed Sam—and we thought, on the whole, a smaller dog might actually prove to be a better fit for the household. I suppose, with that in mind, the rest is also my fault.”

“Wait—the _rest?_ What more could there possibly be than you two adopting a dog without so much as running it past me first?”

“You know, you don’t actually sound mad,” Sam points out.

“I haven’t decided how mad to be yet,” Dean admits, “you _have_ been wanting a dog forever, and maybe that thing will actually get Cas to lay off the hinting about a kitten.”

There is a moment of absolute silence that ought to worry Dean more than it does, and out of that sound vacuum, in timing even Dean has to admit is perfect, comes the sound of an impossibly tiny mew, floating directly out of the carrier that Dean assumed held the toy poodle whose admittedly adorable pictures had been attached to the Craigslist post.

“About that,” says Cas, and that’s when Dean notices that in addition to the bag of puppy food, three different dog beds, treats, and ten or twelve different chew toys on the pile, there also appears to be a large bag of “kitten attract” kitty litter, a bag of kitten food, about five different wand toys, and five or six small litter boxes, “there was an unexpected complication.”

Dean knows for certain that there’s a perfect comeback out there somewhere, a really witty, perfectly pithy one, one that’s both biting and clever and will probably end up with his ass paying the price for his sharp tongue—but honestly, he’s too busy gaping at the sheer audacity of his brother and his boyfriend to even try to figure out what it is.

“You—are you _kidding me?”_ he demands, the anger he couldn’t seem to muster at the idea of a stuffed-animal sized dog starting to flare to life at the presence of a _kitten_ in the mix, too.

Before he has the chance to really start working up a huff, Cas has set down the stack of objects and collection of bags from Orscheln Farm and Home (the store Dean happens to know for a fact has the widest selection of pet supplies in a fifty mile radius, if only because of the number of times either Cas or Sam dragged him to look at the kittens or puppies the local SPCA had available in cages in the parking lot during special adoption days each spring and summer).

“I will acknowledge that this may have gotten slightly out of hand,” Cas tells him, “but before you start getting angry—”

“ _Start?_ ” Dean demands, but he never gets further than that before Cas presses two fingers to his forehead and promptly immerses him in exactly what happened this afternoon.

~*~

_Because it’s one of Castiel’s own memories, Dean finds himself looking out of Cas’s eyes at Sam’s back as his brother knocks lightly on the door of a small house. Clearly it was once extremely well-kept, the garden beds cleared for winter but tidy, but the paint has just started to peel at the corners of the house and there’s a broken board at the far corner of the porch that clearly needs replacing. Moments later, the door is pulled open to reveal a woman, hunched a little with age, her face lined as much with sadness and strain as with the years._

_“Mrs. Briggs?” Sam says, a gentleness in his voice that he used to reserve for the vics who seemed the most likely to break under the weight of what monsters had done to themselves or their loved ones._

_“Yes—and you would be Sam?”_

_“That’s me, and this is my brother Cas,” Sam says, and even in the midst of the memory Dean has to clear his throat a little at the emotion that simple declaration causes to rise in his chest._

_“Please, come in—I’ll introduce you to Sebastian, although there’s been a bit of a complication.”_

_“A complication?” Cas says, sounding worried, and Dean instinctively knows that with one look at the pictures in the ad, he’s already fallen madly in love._

_“I’m afraid so—it’ll have to be your decision, though I’m afraid if you’re not willing to take both I don’t really know what I’ll do.”_

_“Both?” Sam pipes up, sounding almost hopeful. Dean figures that if there’s anything Sam would go nuts for more than a dog, it’s two dogs._

_“Both,” Mrs. Briggs confirms, sounding caught somewhere between strain, hilarity, and profound sadness. “Come see for yourselves.”_

_She leads them down the hallway and into a kitchen—again, there are the signs that this house was once very well-loved and lived in, but now it’s a mess of boxes labeled either “Florida,” or “Goodwill.” Many more of them seem destined for Goodwill than for Florida, and Dean remembers the text of the post in question. Mrs. Elaine Briggs sought a new home for her pedigreed toy poodle—her husband had died recently and she’d suffered a couple of recent falls that made it clear that she couldn’t continue to live alone any longer. Now she was preparing to move to an assisted living facility in Florida, near where her son lived, but the facility did not permit private pet ownership, and so the eleven-month-old puppy in question needed a new home. Despite being pedigreed, she was seeking only a $50 adoption fee—scarcely a pittance for a purebred dog, Dean knew, and likely included only to discourage anyone who might go for a free dog for nefarious reasons. It was clear from the ad—the details included about her situation, as well as the numerous pictures—that what she really cared about was finding him the perfect home. Dean was honestly kind of surprised she’d even let the two hulking dudes into her house. Logically, what could a six-foot-four yeti and his weirdly formal brother want with a toy poodle?_

_Dean could imagine how Sam’s eloquent writing in response to her posting might have pushed past her instinctive hesitation at allowing two strange men to potentially take a small and beloved dog, and once they made it in the door—well, anyone who looked at Sam could tell right away that he would die before going anywhere near a dog-fighting ring. As gifted a hunter as Sam is, as much as he can terrify vamps or werewolves in their tracks, at his core Sam honestly has to be one of the gentlest creatures the planet had ever produced, and it's clear from the moment that he sees what waited in the fluffy dog bed in the kitchen that Mrs. Briggs can see it too._

_“Oh my—” Sam murmurs as the dog bed comes into view._

_“—goodness,” Cas finishes, wonder in his voice, and Dean knows immediately that what Mrs. Briggs had seen as a complication registers only as serendipity to both of the animal-loving Winchester men._

_Sam steps forward first, tentatively so as not to startle the pair curled up together, and then goes down, settling cross-legged and beckoning Cas to join him. Dean watches from Cas’s eyes as he, too, moves forward, crouching down and settling onto the floor beside Sam._

_The bed is red and fleecy and you wouldn’t think it’d be big enough for one animal, let alone two, but they're both so absurdly small that they fit easily. He’d die before he admits it, but even Dean’s heart melts into a puddle at the sight that meets his eyes._

_The larger of the two, if the word large could ever be used to describe something so ridiculously small, is the puppy. The ad had said he was eleven months old, and that about jives with Dean’s limited knowledge of dog development. There's still a puppy-like shape to the face that suggests it isn't quite full-grown just yet. His fur is snow white and classic poodle texture, and Mrs. Briggs has declined to give him the truly ridiculous “classic poodle” haircut, leaving his soft, fluffy fur all about the same length (with the exception of what appears to be a trim around his eyes that leaves him able to actually see). He honestly looks more like a wind-up toy teddy bear than a real dog. And that would be quite enough cute to be going on with, even without the “complication.”_

_The puppy, Sebastian, is curled up around an even smaller little frame. Dean doesn’t know a goddamn thing about cats, not really, but he knows enough to know the one in the bed isn’t much more than a baby itself. Its little face rests comfortably on the dog’s flank, eyes closed, and if not for the fact that the kitten’s fur is short and sleek and largely black across its back, the two might just blend into each other._

_“Oh,” Cas breathes after a few moments of enchanted silence from both he and Sam, “I love tuxedo cats.”_

_“It’s not mine,” Mrs. Briggs speaks up as quietly as Cas, seemingly as loath to disturb the cuddling nappers, “but about a week and a half ago I found the little thing in here curled up with Sebastian in his bed. I might’ve just kept it if not for the move, but—“ she shakes her head, shrugging a little, “I tried putting it back outside, since it must have come in through there—” she nods at a very small doggy door, ridiculously close to the bottom of the door to admit the ridiculously small dog, “but about ten minutes later Sebastian went out the doggy door and promptly held it open for the kitten to come back in. He decided to adopt it, apparently, and I couldn’t bring myself to keep putting it outside when it’s starting to get so cold. It’s just been…sharing Sebastian’s food with him, although I imagine that’s not particularly good for it, and going outside to use the bathroom along with the dog. I’ve been calling it Mischief since it seems to get into just about everything. I was afraid if I put the kitten in the ad nobody would adopt Sebastian—and I guess if you don’t want him, I can take him to the humane society tomorrow, it’s just that Sebastian is already going to have to get used to a new home and family, and he’s so bonded to the kitten—it seemed a shame to separate them if somebody might want to—"_

_“We’ll take them both,” Cas and Sam interrupt in perfect unison, and even though Dean can only see Sam since he’s looking out of Cas’s eyes, he doesn’t have to work hard to imagine the heart eyes on both their faces._

_“Oh, will you? That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Briggs says quietly, examining both of their faces closely for a moment before a small smile settles onto her own face. Then all three of them watch as Sebastian rolls over, head lolling goofily out of the bed, disturbing the kitten just enough that it gives an enormous yawn, stretches its front paws, and then drapes itself comfortably over the tiny dog’s belly. Even Dean, predisposed to be highly skeptical of Sam and Cas’s recent decisions, about dies of cute on the spot._

_Dean can imagine there being a good deal more to the memory, but he doesn’t get to see any of it. He feels rather than sees another quick press of two fingers to his forehead, and the memory dissolves around him._

~*~

He comes back to himself standing in the library, a kitten in one hand and a puppy in the other, both gazing up at him with sleepy interest.

“Oh, that’s _cheating,_ ” he declares immediately, and then has to literally bite down on his tongue to avoid releasing an accidental “awwww” when the puppy lifts its head and gives him an affectionate lick on one cheek as the kitten pokes its nose into his other ear and sniffs with great interest, “and you know I’m allergic to—”

He doesn’t even get to finish the damn sentence before there’s a third tap on his forehead with two fingers, and the urge to sneeze which had appeared the instant the kitten got within dander distance suddenly vanishes.

“Not anymore, you’re not,” says Cas, and Dean turns to find his domineering boyfriend gazing at him with the most pleading eyes Dean has ever seen on him.

“Oh, for the love of—”

“Dean, please, could _you_ have separated them?” Sam asks plaintively.

“That’s kind of immaterial, considering that you didn’t actually run the whole getting a wind-up toy thing past me either.”

“He’s not a wind-up toy,” Sam says firmly, “he’s a purebred toy poodle—”

“—and his name is Sir Johann Sebastian Bark the First,” Cas finishes.

“His name is _what now,_ ” Dean demands.

“Well, Mrs. Briggs called him Sebastian,” Cas says reasonably, “and it wouldn’t have been fair to change the name he answers to, he’s nearly a year old, but purebred dogs are apparently supposed to have four names. So—”

“Cas came up with what is possibly the single best pun in existence,” Sam chimes in supportively, and Dean can’t even make himself argue. It _is_ a pretty killer pun.

“And the cat?” He asks in his single best long-suffering voice, trying to lace it with warning that suggests that this is most definitely not the done deal that it absolutely is.

“We thought you should name him.” Cas speaks up again, smiling at Dean with an expression that says he’s not at all fooled and is completely certain that both Sebastian and the nameless kitten are gonna get to stay.

“That is bribery, pure and simple,” Dean declares, narrowing his eyes at Cas and Sam before another few licks complete with enthusiastic wiggles from the puppy turns his attention back to the festival of precious in his arms.

“Yep,” Sam says happily, “It sure is. The guy at the pet store says he thinks the kitten is about ten weeks old, and a boy. He’s not fixed yet, so we’ll have to get that taken care of in the next month or two, plus shots and a few other things. Mrs. Briggs called him Mischief, but that—”

“Doesn’t really feel quite right, does it?” Dean says, knitting his brow as he pulls the kitten back far enough to get a good look at his face. “Close, maybe, but not quite.”

“That’s what we thought,” Cas says, nodding agreement, and to their eternal credit, neither brother nor boyfriend does any crowing about what is clearly the moment of victory.

“Fine, fine, fine. The two of you have been wanting a dog and a cat respectively forever, and who am I to be the eternal killjoy. But I have no intention of ever dealing with a dirty litter box or puppy accident or hairball, so—”

“—you’ll never have to,” Sam rushes to reassure him, “we’ve already got a schedule all worked out, and Mrs. Briggs gave us the phone number to her pet sitter for times when we’re all away on hunts.”

“They’re small enough they could probably come with us if we found pet friendly motels, at least for now,” Dean says without providing any permission whatsoever for his mouth to make those particular sounds, and if the twin heart-eyes he gets from both Sam and Cas are any indication, he’s getting the world’s best Christmas presents this year. “Now somebody take them before one or both of them pees on me.” (Before he completely loses his chill and starts cooing at them is more like it, since now the puppy is licking one of his cheeks and the kitten has decided to do the same to the other cheek, his tiny rough tongue very determinedly grooming Dean’s equally prickly scruff.)

“So, technically Sebastian is mine and the cat is Cas’s,” Sam says, carefully scooping both of them out of Dean’s arms, “but—”

“You can’t split them up,” Dean says, again completely failing to give his mouth permission to produce those words, let alone with that particular tone of horror, “and someday you and Eileen are gonna wanna move out. You telling me you’re gonna—”

“—but, as I was saying if you’d let me finish, we already know we’re never going to be able to split them up, so if Eileen and I do end up getting our own place—which we have no immediate plans of doing—they’ll stay here with you guys.”

“Do you have any thoughts on a name for the kitten?” Cas chimes in, stepping up next to Dean and sliding a strong arm around his waist, “it seems unfair for him to be nameless when Sebastian has a name.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean allows, eyes on the kitten, which is wriggling anxiously enough in Sam’s arms that he relents and sets it down, whereupon it promptly starts batting at the untied laces on one of Dean’s boots that rests on its side under the long table, “but it’d be even more unfair for him to go around saddled with the wrong name for life. I’ll let you know when I figure out the right one. And in the meantime,” he adds, ignoring the way both Sam and Cas are looking at him as if he’s making all of their dreams come true, “somebody put a bell on it or we’re gonna lose it in this maze.”

“All over it,” Sam chimes in, rummaging through the bags until he comes up with a ridiculously small teal collar, complete with a jangly little bell attached. “We had a tag made for Sebastian’s collar, but we’ll wait to make one for the kitten until he’s got an official name.”

He crouches, long arms reaching under the table and emerging with the kitten, who promptly takes a clawless swipe at a lock of his hair, and without giving his body permission to do so (there seems to be a hell of a lot of that going around these days, for fuck’s sake), Dean is stepping forward to snag the collar and carefully fasten it around the kitten’s ridiculously small neck. Sam sets him back down, and the kitten immediately tries to go after his own collar and instead ends up rolling halfway across the library floor like a clumsy tumbleweed. Sebastian wriggles until Sam sets him down as well and goes happily frolicking after the kitten, who welcomes him into an impromptu wrestling match that looks like something out of Looney Tunes only less violent and way the shit cuter. Dean can feel his lips twitching with the urge to laugh at their antics and honestly, three or four years ago he might have put his foot down and flatly refused to let them keep the animals—or, if he did, he’d have done it with only the greatest reluctance and curmudgeonliness—but what the hell? Their days of apocalypses are through, the milk run hunts pretty much never take more than overnight at most, and why shouldn’t they get to do things like have pets? He’s spent long enough being a killjoy and frankly, he’s tired of it. So, just to see if he’s capable of it, he tests _not_ being a curmudgeon.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, that’s a lot of cute for one bunker,” he says, and rather than smugness or I-told-you-sos, or I-knew-you’d-get-on-boards, the twin smiles he gets from Cas and Sam are made of the kind of pure joy none of them really got to have access to for what feels like forever.

About time, frankly.

~*~

Bedtime finally comes a number of hours later, after a whole bunch of brainstorming about how to outfit the bunker properly and one loud argument about the wisdom of installing a doggy door (Sam is all for it, Cas is flatly insistent on avoiding the risks of allowing either the cat or the dog outside without a fence to contain them) which Dean finally resolves by promising to build a tall fence around an acre or two of the property. Eileen—who was apparently in on the plan all along and had been kept apprised of the addition of a kitten via text message by Sam—comes in shortly before that argument finishes and further saves the day by pulling up a website that sells these spinning things you can get for the top of fences that keep a cat safely inside your yard despite their jumping capabilities, and Dean promises not only to build the fence but to order those things and put them on the top. He honestly doesn’t remember another time when Sam and Cas both hugged him at the same time, but apparently pets have made them a more affectionate household even in the short-term.

The evening has otherwise passed quite peacefully, all four of them rewatching first _Ant Man and the Wasp_ and then _Captain Marvel_ on their way through their sixth or seventh complete Family Watchthrough of the MCU (in release order, of course), and the most noteworthy occurrence apart from the fact that the kitten has more energy than any living creature should (he spends almost the entire four hours of both movies rolling around the floor assaulting one or another of the many, many toys Cas and Sam bought him) is the discovery that Sebastian is honestly the most universally affectionate creature that Dean has ever encountered in his 41 years. 

He starts the movie in Sam’s lap, but about twenty minutes in switches over to Eileen’s, curling up in a ridiculously tiny ball and gazing up at her so adoringly that she bends to shower him in kisses about five times over the course of twenty minutes. Twenty minutes because, somehow, as if he has a timer set, when that time is up, Sebastian hops down off the couch that Sam and Eileen are sharing, trots over to the puppy pad in the corner, squats to pee (“good boy!!” all four of them chorus proudly, causing the tiny tail to wag furiously and the miniscule tongue to loll out in a pleased puppy grin), and then scurries to the second couch, getting up on his hind paws and gazing hopefully up at the pair of them until Dean reaches down to scoop him up. Sebastian happily curls into Dean’s lap, and just for the hell of it, Dean gives his watch a quick glance. Sure enough, precisely twenty minutes later, Sebastian awakens from what appears to be a dead sleep just long enough to stumble from Dean’s lap into Castiel’s, then flops down with a small, contented sigh. Castiel, wrapped up in the movie, glances down at the dog only briefly before starting to card his deft fingers through Sebastian’s fur. The puppy gives what sure sounds like a happy little hum and melts more fully into Cas’s lap. Dean, who has had more than enough experience with the comfort and pleasure of Castiel’s fingers slipping through his own hair, assumes that Sebastian won’t move again all evening, but he’s wrong. Twenty-three minutes later (Dean guesses the three minutes are in deference to Cas’s amazing hands), Sebastian wakes up, shakes himself off, and hops down from the couch to scuttle over to Sam’s feet, whereupon he gets up on hind paws and gives a polite little “ruff.” Sam reaches one gangly, stupidly long arm down, scooping up the puppy and settling him into his stupidly huge lap. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later, a hint of movement from the other couch draws Dean’s eyes, and he glances over just in time to watch Sebastian stand up, totter the twelve inches from Sam’s lap into Eileen’s, turn around three times, and then flop down with a pleased little sigh.

…and so it goes. Through about four hours of movie, Sebastian moves from lap to lap just about every twenty minutes, as if he’d been hired to spread affection and love around and is the single most conscientious worker ever. They don’t talk about it, but it’s pretty clear that everyone’s noticed the rotation—although Dean has a sneaking suspicion that nobody’s more suckered by it than he himself is. Despite himself, he’s falling _hard_ for this puppy (he actually feels kind of guilty about it, because the kitten is cute as hell but just hasn’t captured his heart in the same way).

He honestly kind of expected an argument and a half between Cas and Sam about who gets to sleep with them the first night (he knows better than to even begin to try insisting that the animals won’t be allowed on their beds and honestly, after watching all of that cute all evening and without the worry of his cat allergy on board, he can’t say he actually minds the idea of the two of them sleeping with him and Cas), but as it turns out, Sam immediately signs off on the idea that it’s important for Dean to get as much quality time as possible with the cat until he settles on the proper name, and everybody’s already on board with the idea that the two shouldn’t be forcibly separated, even overnight. Sam and Eileen head off to bed around 11, Sam scooping up the puppy for goodnight kisses while Eileen snags the kitten. Dean watches, both charmed and amused as they then switch, stocking up on pet snuggles in advance of a whole eight or nine hours (no seriously, they legitimately get like _eight hours of sleep_ these days) without them. Despite concerns about the tiny animals getting lost, they both seem to like being around the humans in the bunker, and have taken only brief constitutionals to explore all afternoon and evening before returning to the library, kitchen, or smooshy-couch-filled-den where the humans/angel are congregating as if brought there via homing beacon. Once everyone got settled in for movies, Sebastian didn’t leave the den at all, although the kitten did do some exploring. 

After setting the animals down on the floor, Sam claps Dean on the shoulder and Eileen leans down to kiss his cheek, smiling warmly. _“Goodnight, you crazy kids,”_ Dean signs and says simultaneously, and Sam’s eyes crinkle at the corners, warming as they do every time he watches Dean deliberately communicate with Eileen in her own language rather than expecting her to get by via reading his lips alone.

 _“Goodnight, big brother,”_ Eileen says and signs, and Dean has to blink hard a few times in response to the unexpected welling of emotion those two words bring forth in him. A few moments later, hand in hand, Sam and Eileen head off down the hallway toward their bedroom, leaving Cas and Dean to start up the latest episode of _This Is Us_ in their current binge (Sam watched it months ago and refuses to watch it again, admitting that he enjoyed it but calling it—not inaccurately—‘cry porn’).

A couple episodes and a number of tears later, Dean glances down to realize what he only half registered when it first happened. The puppy has been in one lap or another all night, but he hasn’t actually switched in the past thirty minutes—because that was when he demanded to be lifted onto the couch and promptly settled into Castiel’s lap, and about five minutes later the kitten hopped up under his own steam and flopped onto Dean’s lap. Now the two of them are sound asleep, heads resting just beside each other, pillowed on Cas’s right thigh and Dean’s left thigh respectively.

“Holy fuck,” Dean observes quietly as Cas disconnects his phone from the Chromecast and uses the remote to switch off the television, “can we just sleep here so we don’t disturb them?”

“I don’t think your neck or other joints would particularly appreciate that,” Cas says with a fond smile, and Dean can’t even bring himself to make any quips. After this many years of abuse and on this side of forty, no matter how great Cas is for healing acute injuries, Dean’s body is definitely louder about the kind of sleeping conditions it will accept than it used to be.

“Hey,” Dean tells him quietly, “thank you.”

“For?” Cas says, looking mildly surprised.

“No I-told-you-sos. You and Sam haven’t even approached a smug look even after I crumbled like a soggy graham cracker at the first sight of these cuties.”

“Dean,” Cas says gently, “this isn’t about _winning._ We’re both thrilled that you didn’t object more strongly, and frankly, we both wanted to tell you beforehand but agreed that you might find yourself more agreeable when actually faced with the animal—well, animals, I suppose, though we didn’t know that at the time—in question. I’m sorry we misled you, not smug that you decided in the end that they do make a good addition to the family.”

“I just—I think part of me is still working on getting used to…being okay? Being content basically all the time, and happy a pretty solid chunk of it. My instinctive reactions are still working on remembering that we’re done with catastrophe after apocalypse after disaster—that maybe we just…get to have good things in our life now that there’s not a shitty, sadistic puppet-master pulling our strings. Sometimes I have to actually have them shoved in my face before I realize that good things get to happen now.”

“Mmmm, that is true,” Cas says in a darkly reminiscent voice, and Dean’s pretty sure he’s remembering this morning, when he told Dean he’d brought him breakfast in bed and then shoved his cock down his throat (something that came as a significant relief to Dean, given that Cas’s experiments in cooking continue to result in the smoke detector getting a fair amount of exercise, and last time Dean had made Cas swear to stop all attempts at actual breakfast in bed that were more complex than a bowl of cereal).

“You have a filthy mind,” Dean comments, lips twitching with amusement, “and you know I’m on board with it, but I think tonight—”

“—we should dispense with any particularly amorous activities in lieu of getting our new residents settled.”

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. You cool with that?”

“Dean, there are days and weeks and months and years in which I can make you hurt so good you forget your name, come so hard that you lose the power of speech, and beg so prettily that I wish I could make it your ringtone on my phone—”

“We’ve been over this, and there is no universe in which I’m letting that happen—”

“—so there’s no rush. We can skip a night, or a few nights, or a week—”

“—well, let’s not get _crazy,_ they’re pets, not a vow of celibacy—”

“—without me feeling deprived.”

They pause in the wake of that festival of interruptions, leaning toward each other in wordless agreement. The kisses they share are soft and sweet and lovely, and even when Castiel’s hand rises to tangle in the back of Dean’s hair, tilting his head just so, allowing the angel to deepen the kiss into something powerful and domineering, there’s still a gentleness to the moment that makes Dean’s heart ache with the simple joy of it.

The kisses soften, Cas’s fingers sliding out of Dean’s hair, slipping down to the back of his neck to squeeze, more in affection than control, and they both draw back at the same moment, both sets of eyes tilting downward to Sebastian and the kitten.

“What do you say, kiddos,” Dean says, ostensibly to the animals but really to Cas, “bedtime?”

“We should take them out first, if you’re really insistent on not having a litter box or puppy pads in our—”

“Oh, fuck it, it’s fine. We can have ‘em in our room. They’re just babies, it’s not really fair to them to expect them to hold it all night, and probably just a recipe for accidents.”

Cas positively beams at him, then carefully scoops up both kitten and puppy and transfers them to Dean’s arms, where they both loll sleepily, blinking up at Dean with droopy eyes that make his throat tighten with the sweetness of them.

“I’ll grab the litter box and puppy pads, you can take them to our room.”

Dean can’t even find the will to snark at Cas for giving him permission to take the kids to bed (he resolutely refuses to look at the fact that he literally just thought the words ‘take the kids to bed’), he just brushes his lips across Cas’s cheek and stands, heading down the hall with puppy in one arm and kitten in the other.

~*~

Forty minutes later, he sits up in bed, grunting in exasperation as a slight shift in his feet causes the kitten to pull a full on, butt-wiggle-followed-by-leaping-pounce on his toes for approximately the sixth time. Soft sounds from the other side of the bed suggest that Cas is valiantly but unsuccessfully attempting to quash snorts of laughter at the kitten’s antics. Dean reaches for the little dude but fails to get a hand on him as the kitten goes tearing from the foot of the bed up to the head of it and then back down, making a full circuit. Sebastian, who immediately curled up in the crook of Cas’s knees, lifts a sleepy head and opens a single eye to watch the kitten with what appears to be vague judgment before flopping his head back down.

“You,” Dean says, frowning at the blur of black and white fur circling the bed for the seventeenth time, “are a goddamn maniac. This is bedtime, not the Olympics, you athletic little shit, and—” he freezes, inhaling a sudden breath as inspiration strikes. Cas frowns, sitting up, resting a hand on Dean’s arm.

“Dean?” He asks, brows furrowed in concern, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, no,” Dean reassures him, “I’m fine. Shhh, give me a second. I think I’m having a moment of genius.”

Cas lapses into silence immediately, reaching down to gently pet the tiny puff of fluffy white fur snoozing at the back of his legs. He waits patiently, watching as Dean reaches down to pluck the kitten off of the bed, holding it up until they’re nose to nose. The kitten gazes at Dean in great interest, craning his neck to give the very tip of Dean’s nose a lick, immediately following it up by a frantic whirl of batting at the lock of Dean’s hair that falls over his forehead—he’s probably a little overdue for a haircut, come to think of it. Dean stares at him, gazing into eyes that are still fading from baby blue to what will probably be quite a striking yellow-gold (he was interested in the dichromatic eyes when he first spotted them so he googled it; they won’t stay that way, it’s a baby thing) and nods once, firmly.

“I’ve got it,” he tells Cas, “I know his name.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” Cas says, a phrase (like so many others) that he’s stolen from Dean himself.

“Olympus. Because he’s an athletic little fucker.”

“Mmmm,” Cas says, consideringly. “I like it. It seems a large name for such a small creature, though. Olympus was, after all, a mountain.”

“Got it covered. You know how Mrs. Briggs called him Mischief?”

“Indeed,”

“Well, he _is_ also pretty damn mischievous—so what do you think about Imp as a nickname? I know an Imp is technically a small, demonic creature, but people also call little mischievous kids imps, and he sure seems like an Imp to me.”

Cas is silent for a long moment, staring at the kitten, but Dean isn’t fussed about it. He knows that the angel isn’t averse, he’s just assessing. And sure enough, a moment later, he smiles broadly. “Olympus. Imp. That’s actually quite a brilliant nickname—and somehow both the formal name and the nickname are perfect for him.”

Dean grins back, feeling pretty smug himself. It _is_ a really good name. “What do you say, Imp,” he says, reaching out to nudge the kitten’s nose with his own. Imp tilts his head to one side, blinks at Dean surprisingly placidly, and then gives a ridiculously high-pitched meep of what certainly appears to be approval.

“I think he likes it,” says Cas, “and better yet—it looks to me as though he might be finally starting to wear out.”

Cas appears to be right. Imp blinks again, and then a third time, eyes starting to look a little heavy, and then his jaw splits in an enormous yawn, revealing baby teeth that Dean can already confirm are sharp as shit, even through a quilt and a sheet. “According to that website, kittens sleep almost 18 hours a day, and he did just play for almost four hours straight. He’s gotta be pretty well tuckered out.”

“Much like you,” Cas points out, quite accurately. It’s been a busy day, what with the whole getting two new family members thing.

“True enough. Let’s see if we can get this small, demonic creature to consider going to sleep so I can do the same.” 

Dean sets Imp down on the bed between himself and Cas, figuring that he ought to give the little dude a choice of who to cuddle with, and assuming that he’s likely to march right over to Sebastian and pass out in a puddle with him.

Turns out that he’s wrong about that. Imp sits down on the blanket, pausing long enough to give another enormous yawn before he stands, stretches, and then marches directly up the bed and behind Dean, who turns his head to watch as the kitten walks directly across Dean’s pillow, then sits down to one side of it and turns those vivid, intent little eyes on Dean, as if to ask why he hasn’t taken back possession of his side of the pillow. Shrugging a little, Dean turns to brush a quick kiss across Cas’s lips and then settles back down, shifting his head a little further to the left side of the pillow to leave room for the kitten seated on the right side. As soon as he’s gotten himself comfortable and Cas has once again lain down and spooned up tight behind Dean, Imp stands, turning in three very tight little circles before he flops down and curls up into a ridiculously tiny ball of black and white fur. He is snoring very, very quietly about six seconds later, and Dean doesn’t even try to restrain the “awwwwww” that demands to be given voice.

“You know,” Cas says, brushing his lips across the back of Dean’s neck. “I think Imp likes you.”

“You know,” Dean says, smiling a little bit as a whisker lightly tickles his cheek, “I think I like Imp, too. And Sebastian’s not so bad, either.”

He can’t see the dog, but the soft whuff of what sounds like agreement suggests that the puppy has just announced that Dean isn’t so bad, himself.

~*~

When he wakes up the next morning, Cas is gone—likely making coffee, the only kitchen task involving heat that Dean has taught him to do without causing either smoke or actual fire. Angelic boyfriend or no, though, Dean is not alone. Imp is curled up on his pillow again, tucked into the crook at the back of Dean’s neck, and Sebastian has taken over his spot from the night before, curled into a ball a few inches in front of Dean’s nose. He leans forward a little bit to press a kiss to the top of the soft, sweet head, and feels the kitten roll over and stretch behind him.

“Good morning, kids,” he murmurs. “Welcome to your first full day as Winchesters.”

A surprisingly robust purr starts up behind him, just the frequency of an idling diesel engine, and is joined almost immediately by a hum of contentment from the puff of white fur in front of Dean’s nose.

“Don’t ever tell Sam or Cas I said so,” Dean murmurs, completely unashamed to find that he’s carrying on a conversation with two animals who don’t speak English, “but I think maybe you two were the last thing we’ve been missing.”

The purr at the back of his neck strengthens and a little head lifts out of the indiscriminate pile of fur in front of him, leaning forward to deposit a small, affectionate lick to his forehead. “Yeah,” Dean says, lips quirking upward, “I love you guys too. Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Those of you who have been following along with the Let It Snow series since its birth back in early 2016 may remember that the Imp in my username refers to the love of my life, my ride or die, my cat Imp, who was undergoing treatment for cancer at the time. He and I fought hard for two years, but cancer has a tendency to win in the end, and Imp said goodbye more than three and a half years ago now—hard to believe it’s been that long.
> 
> A little over a week ago, another Ride or Die said goodbye—BellaRisa’s goodest boy, Sebastian. He was a slip of a thing, and the amount of love he had to give absolutely dwarfed his tiny frame. It’s been a rough year for all of us, but Bella’s been through more than her share, and losing this amazing little man is the kind of thing that creates wounds that never quite heal. If you’re not familiar with the analogy that grief is a ball in a box, it’s worth checking out. Imp’s ball is smaller than it used to be now, but it still smacks into that button every few weeks or months and leaves me doubled over, struggling to breathe with the weight of Imp’s loss. Pretty much every moment is like that for Bella right now.
> 
> I can’t bring Sebastian back to her any more than I could bring Imp back to me—but I could do something else. Not the same, not bringing them back into our arms—but giving them life anew anyhow. I could make them immortal, give them a life that will go on for as long as the written word survives, for as long as the internet is permanent. From today onward, for as long as Bella and I live, we will know that our boys live too—and that the three Winchesters (and one Leahy) are loving them as ferociously as we did.
> 
> Included below is the earliest photo of Sebastian I could get my hands on--18 months, not 11, but close enough--and one of Imp at 10 weeks old. If and when you ever come back to this little fic, in need of pure fluff, these sweet faces are the ones you should picture as you read it. These sweet faces are the ones that will live forever in the bunker with a trio of Winchesters (and a Leahy who, one of these days, will end up a Winchester too).


End file.
